The thing is, I don’t believe for a second that oil executives (or Rishi Sunak, for that matter) care one bit about Stonehenge. If it were in their backyard and they wanted a better view they wouldn’t think twice about dynamiting it.
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They care about their bottom line and far too many of our governments (especially the US and the UK) are protecting those. But high profile action might contribute to getting Conservatives out of office and more environmentally friendly parties into power. So, putting pressure on the government can put pressure on corporations… 
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Yeah, but if this stunt had any effect on the election it was a pro Tory effect. Nobody votes Labour because an unaffiliated group vandalised world heritage. But it might suppress support of the Greens, or anyone visibly supporting climate goals.
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Again, you know that how? The election has not happened yet, so none of us know that.
Or maybe I’m the only person who can’t read the future and the rest of you can…
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Not for me. Perhaps for JSO. And if they had said that there would be less of a whiff of bullshit about their statement.
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An example of campaigners actually holding fossil fuel companies to account
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Okay… that’s great. This is local action. Doesn’t mean other kinds of protest aren’t also GOING to be effective… there isn’t a “right” way to protest. History shows us that.
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So much THIS. Thank you.
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Yes, me too. I can’t believe the outrage shown by so many people here on the bbs. You all seem not to understand quite right how truly fucked we are. Have you seen the sea surface temperature anomalies? This is so scary. What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Now you are aware, thanks to those Just Stop Oil protests.
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DON’T ALIENATE YOUR BASE! Tons of other ways to call attention and making people think you’re an ass-hole is NOT a good way to win them to your cause. Turns out that NOT all forms of publicity are good…
People said the same thing to this guy quite a lot… “if you’d only protest the RIGHT way, you wouldn’t alienate people!”
We don’t know what works, until we see actual change. I’m not sure why this is such a tough concept to grasp, but it’s the truth. We don’t know if this will work or not, because it literally is happening now (these tactics).
Also, it strikes me that it’s funny how many people seem willing to turn away from pressuring our governments on the environment, just because they dislike one groups tactics? I mean, you’re either for the issue of addressing climate change, or your not, yeah? But if someone uses an action you thing is wrong, and that leads you to vote against your own interests… then…
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I feel as if we’re writing past one another.
I don’t think anybody here is defending what these protestors did. I certainly am not, and neither was danimagoo as far as I can tell. Many of us have no idea who these protestors were, what they were protesting, and why they were vandalizing a historical site.
Whether not any of us agree with their methods or message, at least having a bit of context behind it is useful information. I’d prefer to have some minimal understanding on a topic before commenting on it beyond a simple kneejerk “wtf” reaction which may be cathartic but doesn’t do much for overall discourse.
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Again, we DO know that, because @danimagoo posted links to some of what they’re arguing for… We do know it’s about climate change, specifically about the oil companies and their stranglehold on world politics and economics. We know that they’re anti-fossil fuel…
Otherwise, I do agree with you here. I think that we can certainly debate the morality of particular actions and disagree on that… but I’ll reiterate again, we don’t know if this will be impactful on the climate/oil discussion, because we won’t know that until some future point in time. You can never tell what’s going to move the needle on issues like this. You can only tell in hindsight (and that’s almost always up for debate too)…
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Yes! Which is precisely why defending her original post in this topic is a hill I’m willing to die on. It seems like some commenters here are conflating providing information as tacit approval.
ETA:
Absolutely, and I think just about anybody who comes here regularly can agree that this is an issue of critical importance to the future of the planet.
If nothing else, it’s hard to deny that this protest was pretty damn effective at getting the media’s attention – even if only for a brief moment.
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Whew, this thread.
In my experience, protest is rarely ever “popular” in the moment.
And it’s beyond easy to dictate what kind of protest is “acceptable” from the comfort and privilege of one’s own armchair.
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No. Not really. I don’t think I’ve seen a chart like that in the context of Just Stop Oil–until now.
I’ve see it it other contexts before.
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… they’re rocks
It’s a bunch of rocks, in a circle
They belong to everybody, and people have been painting them for thousands of years, and they’re fucking fine, it’s not a big deal
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